What the Dorruh are you doing to my Eberron?

[Warbringer]

..and all those nifty little ships built by House Lyrandar will now become nifty little spelljammers....

why wouldn't they

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

But it's still a dumb idea.

Every race having every dragonmark. Now, that's what I'd call a dumb idea. Actually, looking at the possibility of the free for all dragonmark party, the changes in cosmology are a refreshing breeze, and I say that as someone who really hates the idea of a single planar structure for all settings.

Making all marks available to all races is a way of provoking a FR-style destruction on the basics of Eberron without having to move the timeline one month in the future. I may be wrong on the assumption, but I believe the majority of the fans would be more comfortable with a 10-year advance in the timeline.

Cheers,

 

[Glyfair]

Every race having every dragonmark. Now, that's what I'd call a dumb idea.

I'll note that the "every race having access to every dragonmark" only applies to PCs. The idea is that the people with the "wrong" dragonmarks are especially marked by destiny (according to Keith).

I still don't like the idea and will ignore it. Still, it can sort of fit in.

 

[evilgenius8000]

Part of me is kind of disappointed in the possibility that a demand for absolute interactivity (Spelljammers in Dark Sun! Tieflings in Ravenloft! Defilers in Birthright! Strahd in the Realms!) means that 4e is really only capable of producing one campaign setting.

This is highly possible... WotC has already said players will be able to use any player-oriented option in any book in any campaign setting. Seeing as spelljammers are in the MotP, Strahd's in Open Grave, and Tieflings are in the PHB, we could already have Count Strahd flying a spelljammer, crewed by tiefling pirates from the lands east of Faerun, across the planes and perhaps stopping off in Sharn to trade astral diamonds to tribal halflings for some dinosaurs.

EDIT: I don't think the problem lies with the game itself (quite the contrary... IMO, 4E is an improvement upon 3E), but rather writers who serve the whims of the marketing department.

 

[jdrakeh]

. . . we could already have Count Strahd flying a spelljammer, crewed by tiefling pirates from the lands east of Faerun, across the planes and perhaps stopping off in Sharn to trade astral diamonds to tribal halflings for some dinosaurs.

I think what people are forgetting is that (with the exception of the Eberron references) you could have all of that in AD&D, too. Indeed, the whole of Spelljammer, the original Ravenloft setting cosmology, and products liek Planescape were specifically designed to facilitate bridging existing settings in such a manner.

 

[Renfield]

I have this to say about anything Wizards produces for Eberron 4e... YAY!

It just means getting the old 3.5 supplements will be even cheaper on Amazon.com leaving me with a larger Eberron collection than I previously had. Same with my FR supplements. A sweet affordable game books for *my* edition of D&D.

Though a tip to those Eberron fans who are up in arms. If you hated 4e then play the 3.5 stuff, not like they're going to further flesh out the campaign setting after all. If you love 4e and want more details on the setting use the 3.5 stuff. Sure the crunch is useless but the fluff is still intact right. Just trying to look on the bright side of things.

 

[Spatula]

Part of me is kind of disappointed in the possibility that a demand for absolute interactivity (Spelljammers in Dark Sun! Tieflings in Ravenloft! Defilers in Birthright! Strahd in the Realms!) means that 4e is really only capable of producing one campaign setting.

It might release Dark Sun, but it'll just be "4e in the desert!"

It would be really pretty pathetic.

We've already had a taste of this with the 3e Dragon rules for Dark Sun, which followed the same philosophy. So if they do come out with a 4e DS, I have zero faith that it will have any resemblence to the original. They might as well leave it alone, in any case - the setting was a niche product to begin with, and the existing playerbase for it is already split (original box set vs the later products). I think you could do a really kick-ass Dark Sun with 4e, but it won't be published by WotC, that's for sure.

Regarding the Eberron cosmology stuff, I'm not so bothered by shifting the existing planes into the 4e framework - if they still work the same, the planar structure just window dressing. What does bother me is equating Dolurrh with the Shadowfell, when it's not. Mabar is Eberron's shadow plane, but I assume James Wyatt was just speaking off the cuff and made a mistake there. But that also illustrates the difficulty of forcing the 4e cosmology onto other settings. The Shadowfell is where souls go when they die, AND the plane of icky negative energy stuff, whereas in Eberron there are two different planes for those concepts.

I also wonder how they're going to shoehorn the primordials into the creation myth.

 

[Darrin Drader]

I'm actually going to agree with WotC on this one (first time for everything, I know). I think planar cosmologies in official settings should either be standard, so as to allow for ease of comprehension as well as easy movement from one world to the next, or they should be completely disassociated. I really wasn't a fan of having all of these linked but different cosmologies for each campaign world in 3E. FR, for instance, seemed like a lot of deviation from the standard great wheel cosmology for really no purpose other than the aesthetic.

Frankly, what bothers me is that they had to reinvent planar cosmology for 4E. It isn't as though the previous version somehow needed fixing.

 

[La Bete]

I'm actually going to agree with WotC on this one.

WHO ARE YOU, AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH DARRIN?

As for the OP, meh. This has been telegraphed for a while, and I can't really get worked up about it, as I think they can retrofit the cosmology and retain the Eberron feel.

Yeah it's possible this is The Shape Of Things To Come, as regards to the settign being trashed but I'm going to hold off on bringing out the "The End is Nigh" signs.

 

[FourthBear]

If Eberron is just a flavor of D&D Blob, what is the point of even having Eberron?

Because even if they do rename the 13 planes of Eberron to correspond to those familiar to reader of the Manual of the Planes, it leaves untouched those elements of Eberron that have been the primary focus of the campaign guide and all Eberron supplements?

I own the Eberron Campaign Guide, all of the supplement and all of the Eberron adventures. Do you know how much of that investment would be affected by renaming planes and making changes to the descriptions of several of the planes to better match the 4e cosmology? An incredibly tiny fraction.

The Last War still occurs, Cyre still lies dead, the Five Nations still scheme against each, as do the breakaway and new nations, the secret societies still exist, as do the warforged, shifters, changelings, the Dragons of Argonessen still obsess over the Prophecy, the Sovereign Host and Silver Flame still command the faith of many, The Lords of Dust, the Daelkyr, dragonmarked houses, Dreaming Dark and so many more elements that define Eberron that do not depend on the naming of 13 planes that it would be even more tedious to continue naming them will continue on.

As I said, I can understand not liking the cosmological changes, but declarations that the Eberron Campaign Guide is now pointless or worthless seem utterly bewildering to me.